In cooperation with Winrock International Institute for Agricultural
Development, ATTRA in August published the Mid-South Directory of Agroforestry
Producers and Researchers.

The 150-page directory was funded by the Southern Regional SARE program
and compiled by Douglas R. Henderson of Winrock and ATTRA staff members
Teresa Maurer, Bob Wilson, Katherine Adam and David Zodrow. It includes
contact information and data about the operations and projects of 278 agroforestry
farmers, extensionists, consultants and researchers in 20 states. ATTRA
will maintain updates of the printed directory in electronic form.

By invitation of the National Park Service, ATTRA is co-sponsoring a
sustainable agriculture workshop on Nov. 3 at the Delaware Water Gap National
Recreation Area at Milford, PA.

Titled "Moving Toward Sustainability - Agriculture in the Middle
Delaware River Valley," the workshop's goal is to encourage farmers
who grow crops there on leased land and park service personnel to adopt
sustainable agriculture practices. About 3,000 acres of the 70,000-acre
park is devoted to cropland. Established 27 years ago, the park is 37 miles
long by four miles wide.

Recreation area official Wayne Millington said the Park Service is not
under mandate to establish sustainable agriculture programs but is encouraging
sustainable systems for the sake of the environment, park workers and visitors,
farm land and wildlife at the park.

Other sponsors include the National Park Service, Pike County Conservation
District, Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, U.S. Soil
Conservation Service - RC&D of Northeast Pennsylvania and the Pike
County Cooperative Extension Service.

For a flyer listing workshop speakers or further information about the
workshop, call Millington at (717) 296-6952 or ATTRA Program Manager Jim
Lukens at 1-800-346-9140.

Alternative agriculture with its new technologies must have far greater
support from the federal government if it is to become a real catalyst
for rural economic development, ATTRA Program Manager Jim Lukens testified
at a senate subcommittee hearing on July 14 in Washington, D.C.

Several other people prominent in the sustainable agriculture movement
also told the Senate Small Business Subcommittee on Rural Economy and Family
Farming about the need for federal policy changes and greater funding levels
for alternative agriculture research and information dissemination.

"A healthy agriculture and a healthy rural economy are mutually
dependent," Lukens said. "A rural community cannot be economically
healthy and vibrant with a bankrupt agricultural sector. The good health
of farms, farm families and the farm economy similarly requires a rural
community that is economically, environmentally and socially sound."

Subcommittee Chairman Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) said the hearing
was the first in a series which will examine the state of rural America
and promising strategies for rural economic development.

"Therefore, our principal question today is a simple one,"
he said. "Is alternative agriculture a promising strategy for rural
economic development?...Then what impediments exist to its further progress,
and what is the proper federal role in promoting it?"

Wellstone cited a report released in June by the National Academy of
Sciences which criticized the way the federal government assesses the health
effects of pesticides in food on children and infants. He intends to present
"concrete suggestions" from the hearing to Congress "regarding
how to improve or extend our current programs that promote alternative
agriculture."

Wellstone said EPA Administrator Carol Browner in June also called for
"a dramatic shift in policy to reduce the use of pesticides and promote
sustainable agriculture."

"I strongly support such a policy shift," he said. "For
both health and environmental reasons, we must move quickly and decisively
toward more ecologically-sound farming practices."

Lukens said an increasing number of American farmers are turning to
alternative agriculture to help both their families and ailing communities.
"American farmers, long known for their ability to innovate, are today
strongly motivated to try new and different enterprises and methods,"
he said.

Between 10,000 and 12,000 farmers, Extensionists, researchers and agribusiness
people call ATTRA each year for the latest information on alternative agriculture
practices, Lukens said.

Other sustainable agriculture organizations - such as the University
of Minnesota Center for Alternative Plant and Animal Products and the Farming
Alternatives Center at Cornell University - are providing a growing number
of farm callers with business, marketing and technological assistance,
he explained.

"The farmers who are calling ATTRA are improving their economic
plight by substituting on-farm resources for purchased inputs, adding or
switching to alternative higher-profit crops and livestock, and adding
innovative marketing or on-farm processing to their farming activities,"
Lukens told senators.

First, agriculture is still the base for the rural economy, and alternative
agricultural enterprises and practices are among the most promising economic
development tools available.

Secondly, alternative agriculture serves as a model for rural economic
development because of its practical and theoretical exploration of economic
viability, protection of natural resources and social values.

"Applying the same yardstick of sustainabiliy to American rural
economic development activities has only recently begun," Lukens said.
"Rural communities, like farms, will benefit from greater reliance
on internal resources, and more attention to protecting and conserving
natural and human resources."

Lukens said rural communities and businesses could learn from farmers
about the advantages of "enterprise diversification, and movement
toward management- and information-intensive management techniques."

Three things are needed to reverse the downward trend and spur economic
development in rural communities, Lukens said. They are:

Availability of reliable technical information, appropriate to the
rural setting, with farmers teaching farmers, are highly effective ways
to transfer new farming approaches.

Better access to financing is badly needed. Innovative, small-scale
entrepreneurs frequently have difficulty borrowing money because of the
smallness of their loans, which require lots of time on the part of a loan
officer, and because they are trying something which is not familiar to
the lender.

Rural entrepreneurs need business management, planning, and market
development assistance. They also need help finding their way through a
maze of state and federal regulations. Rural economic incubator projects
can be very successful in providing both encouragement and information
at every step of business establishment.

Other witnesses and their testimonies at the Senate Small Business Subcommittee
on Rural Economy and Family Farming included:

Dr. George Bird, who was then director of the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education (SARE) program and has now returned to Michigan
State University where he is a professor of nematology, who explained how
the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program
(known then as LISA) was created in 1988 by Congress to emphasize environmentally-sound
farming and research quality of life issues for farmers and rural communities.

Paul O'Connell, director of USDA's Alternative Agricultural Research
and Commercialization (AARC) Center, who said the center is exploring ways
to expand commercial uses for farm products into industrial products that
will create jobs in rural communities. The AARC with $10 million in funds
is helping to finance 26 research projects (which were selected from 407
proposals) with individuals in the U.S. If successful in their business
venture, recipients must reimburse AARC for start-up costs.

Don Taylor, South Dakota State University, who described research there
showing that sustainable farming systems are less costly, provide comparable
or greater yields and profits, and are more socially efficient than conventional
ag systems.

Ron Kroese, who was then executive director of the Land Stewardship
Project of Minnesota and now is president of the National Center for Appropriate
Technology, who said there is a vital need to translate the good stewardship
values which guide sustainable farmers into public policies. Reinforcing
these values and rewarding farmers who put them into practice should be
the basis for federal policy.

Kathy Ozer of Washington, D.C., executive director of the National Family
Farm Coalition which is comprised of 38 family farm and rural advocacy
organizations in 30 states, who said federal farm polices the past 12 years
have forced over half a million farmers out of business, with thousands
more on the brink of economic collapse. The increased "efficiency"
of corporate farming the past 30 years has taken an enormous toll on the
environment, human health, family farm income and the quality of rural
life, she said. America needs a vast overhaul of farm and food policy from
the farm fields to the checkout counter.

Margaret Krome, agricultural policy coordinator of the Wisconsin Rural
Development Center, who said that many rural banks do not offer adequate
credit to farmers and rural small businesses in their home towns. Farmers
also need good sources of expert information to help guide them to farm
sustainably, she added.

Ron Kroese, co-founder and former executive director of the Land Stewardship
Project at Marine, Minn., has been named president of the National Center
for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) which administers ATTRA. Kroese replaces
former NCAT President George Turman, who served in the position for four
years and is now retiring to his native town, Missoula, Mont.

George Boody, who has served the past two years as managing director
of Land Stewardship Project, has been named LSP interim executive director.

"We are extremely pleased with the selection of Ron Kroese as NCAT's
new president," NCAT Chairman Jack Young, senior vice president of
the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, D.C., said. "We're confident
that Kroese will continue to strengthen NCAT's national leadership roles
in the sustainable agriculture, energy conservation and affordable, resource-efficient
housing areas."

Based at Butte, Mont., NCAT is a national nonprofit organization working
to find technical solutions that use local resources and labor to address
problems facing all Americans, but especially society's most disadvantaged
citizens. To accomplish this mission, NCAT has three main program areas:
sustainable energy, resource efficient housing and sustainable agriculture.
Among these programs are the National Appropriate Technology Assistance
Service (NATAS), an energy information service based at Butte, Mont., ATTRA,
a sustainable agriculture information service at Fayetteville, Ark., and
the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Clearinghouse project, also at Butte,
MT.

Beginning in 1982, Kroese served as executive director of the Land Stewardship
Project (LSP) at Marine, MN, which he co-founded with former National Farmers
Union Vice President Victor Ray. LSP is a non-profit, grassroots organization
which promotes and develops environmentally sustainable approaches to agriculture
and fosters an ethic of stewardship towards farmland in the Midwest.

Kroese has an extensive background in the sustainable agriculture and
rural development fields. From 1981 to 1982, he served as director of the
American Farm Project, a rural humanities education program sponsored by
the National Farmers Union and funded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities. He currently serves on numerous councils and boards dedicated
to American rural life, which include the Minnesota Governor's Sustainable
Development Initiative, the National Rural Life Conference, the Midwest
Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and the Minnesota Extension Service
Citizen's Advisory Committee.

An experienced journalist, Kroese has written a number of articles for
publications such as the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, Seed
Savers Exchange and the LSP quarterly newsletter, Land Stewardship Letter.
After graduation from South Dakota State University with a BS in journalism/English,
he worked for four years as a reporter and columnist for newspapers in
South Dakota and Hawaii. Kroese also served as press secretary to U.S.
Senator James Abourezk (D-SD) and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee from
1975-78. He currently serves on the editorial advisory committee of three
publications, E Magazine, Organic Farmer and Earth Ethics.

Kroese's educational credits include graduate study in American Literature
at Kansas State University at Manhattan; completion of the Reflective Leadership
Program at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
from 1984-85; and serving from 1991-92 as a visiting faculty member and
researcher at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the Humphrey
Center, University of Minnesota.

The goal of the workshop, which ATTRA helped to organize with Park Service
IPM Coordinator Terry Cacek, was to help implement sustainable agriculture
practices for Park Service personnel and farmers who grow crops along the
500-mile Parkway.

Declared an official post road in 1801 by President Thomas Jefferson,
the historical highway corridor extends through 300 farms and three southern
states (Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee). About 5,500 acres, or 12 percent,
of the Parkway are farmed on annual leases, mostly in corn, soybeans and
cotton.

Other workshop speakers were from the U.S. Park Service, USDA Sustainable
Agriculture Research and Education program, Tennessee Valley Authority,
USDA Agricultural Research Service, Mississippi Department of Agriculture,
Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service and U.S. Agricultural Stabilization
and Conservation Service.

Creation of the "Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education" has been scheduled for October 26 at Bellevue, WA.

According to the 14-member initiating committee, the consortium will
work to shape "national research and extension policy to support a
more sustainable agricultural system...to evaluate the outcomes and achievements
of research and extension programs in light of sustainable agriculture
goals...and articulate the rationale for increased federal funding for
sustainable agriculture research and education based on past accomplishments,
critical gaps and relevant unfunded or underfunded projects."

The consortium organizational meeting will be held beginning at noon
Oct. 26 at the Red Lion Hotel in Bellevue, WA, directly following the Conference
on Science and Sustainablility: Reshaping Agricultural Research and Education.

For more information about the conference or the consortium, please
contact:

ATTRA Program Manager Jim Lukens will be named chairman of the Sustainable
Agriculture Network for a three-year term when the SAN Coordinating Committee
convenes for its annual planning meeting at Bellevue, WA, from October
23-24. He will succeed current SAN Chairwoman Jill Auburn of the University
of the California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.

Members of the committee will attend the "Conference on Science
and Sustainability: Rehaping Agricultural Research and Education"
and will seek suggestions from other conference participants on ways to
make SAN more responsive to their sustainable agriculture information needs.

Established in 1990, SAN is a cooperative effort of people from private
nonprofit groups, Extension, land grant universities and agribusinesses
involved in offering and promoting effective decentralized communication
about sustainable agriculture. The group offers such publications as the
Sustainable Agriculture Directory of Expertise and coordinates the Sanet
computer discussion group.

ATTRA welcomed two new staff members this fall - Dr. Douglas Wilde,
from Dallas, TX, as development specialist, and Tracey Smith of Forrest
City, AR, as an intern working in ATTRA's Resource Center.

Wilde, trained as a wildlife biologist, worked for five years as assistant
director and as a grants/contract specialist in the Office of Research
Administration at Southern Methodist University at Dallas, TX. Until moving
to Dallas in 1986, he lived in Hawaii where he owned a rowing shells business
and a gardening services firm and managed a macadamia nut farm. At ATTRA,
he will help to develop new services and programs.

Smith is a freshman who is majoring in mechanical engineering at the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Raised on a family farm, he gained
additional agricultural experience through high school by working in the
Farmer's Home Administration office at Forrest City, serving as president
of his school's Future Farmers of America chapter and joining the "Youth
Enterprise in Agriculture (YEA)" program. The YEA is a career and
leadership development program for Arkansas Youth which is sponsored by
the Arkansas Land and Farm Development Corporation (ALFDC).

Dr. Joe Schiller, a technical specialist with ATTRA since March of 1991,
has taken a teaching position at Austin Peay State University at Clarksville,
TN. Previous to working at ATTRA, Schiller taught college courses at San
Diego, CA, and Salt Lake City, UT. In Tennessee, he will teach biological
sciences.

While at ATTRA, Schiller researched cases involving aquaculture, wetlands
and riparian zone management, water quality and real or potential impacts
of agriculture on aquatic eco systems. He also authored numerous information
packages, which included production of catfish, trout, tilapia, prawn,
crawfish and the integration of aquaculture with hydroponics.

Schiller's wife, Sally, is also an instructor of biological sciences
at the college. They have one child, Eric.

Alice Jones, former program manager for the USDA water quality grants
program, has been named interim director of the Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education program. She succeeds former director Dr. George
Bird, who served in the position for two years and has returned to Michigan
State University where he is a professor of nematology.

Patrick Madden, executive vice president of the World Sustainable Agriculture
Association (WSAA), will continue to serve as SARE associate director.

The 1994 appropriation for SARE has been increased from $6.7 million
to $7.4 million.

Ames, an ATTRA technical specialist who also operates a northwest Arkansas
orchard and nursery, is a member of the preproposal review panel. He will
critique from 15 to 20 applications for grants from the USDA Sustainable
Agriculture Research and Education program and the EPA Agriculture in Concert
with the Environment program. The preproposal evaluation panel consists
of reviewers from academia, non-governmental organizations and producers
with expertise in sustainable agriculture. Selected preproposals will be
developed as full proposals and forwarded to the Technical Review Committee.

Maurer, assistant ATTRA program manager, is chairwoman of the SARE Southern
Regional Technical Review Committee which will meet in January at the University
of Georgia at Griffin to review proposals from 13 southern states. Maurer
also chaired the 27-member committee of farmers, agency representatives
and university researchers in 1993.

Several sustainable agriculture publications are now available on "FolioViews"
diskettes for a nominal price, according to Phil Rasmussen, director of
Agricultural Systems Technology at Utah State University at Logan, UT.
Rasmussen as a member of the Sustainable Agriculture Network Committee,
transferred electronic versions of the publications to diskettes.

September 30 always finds me looking backward. That is the end of ATTRA's
accounting year, and I am looking back to see how ATTRA has done. How many
questions have we answered for U.S. farmers? How many magazines and newsletters
have we scanned, looking for information that our callers need? How many
conferences have we attended to gather people contacts and information
not yet in print? And I find looking back at these numbers to be encouraging.

We've been busy this year! We responded to 20% more inquiries than we
did last year -- 12,000 total for the year. We regularly perused over 450
different periodicals, and attended more than 50 conferences and meetings
across the country. And although I haven't found a completely satisfactory
way to count our quality, feedback I have received leads me to believe
that the information we are sending out is getting better, too.

One quality factor that is easy to put numbers on -- timeliness of response
-- continues to improve. In the past year we have completed 25% of all
inquiries within one week, and 92% within four weeks. This is a good response
rate for the kind of individualized research many of our questions require.

Although looking back is useful, October 1, the beginning of our accounting
year, finds me looking forward. I know that there are additional farmers
with information needs we should be serving, additional state and local
agencies and organizations with whom we should be partnering, new ways
of presenting information we should be exploring. I would like to see 40%
of all inquiries answered within one week and 95% within four weeks. As
I look forward I see opportunities to do more and better.

To be able to provide more useful information to more farmers more quickly,
we are making some changes that probably seem mundane when viewed from
outside. We are gradually and thoughtfully changing the ways we work with
each other within our office, both in the flow of work and in the ways
we help each other and treat each other as people.

In a sense we are looking at our office and our program in the same
way farms should be viewed -- as a whole system with many interdependent
parts. The soil, crops, livestock, people, etc. must all contribute and
interact in complementary and synergistic ways.

At ATTRA, I am blessed to be working with colleagues who are both competent
and dedicated to helping farms, farm families, and rural communities. And
I am confident that, in the coming year, we will continue to improve the
complementary and synergistic ways we each contribute to the system which
is ATTRA, helping ATTRA contribute to the system which is U.S. agriculture.
If you have suggestions of ways we can be of greater help to you, please
drop me a line. We want to keep getting better!

"Rivers must succeed, mountains must succeed, wilderness and prairies
must succeed, oceans must succeed; possums and black snakes must succeed;
whole ecologies must succeed; the human endeavor must succeed. Everything
must succeed so that the whole of the life system succeeds so that Earth
succeeds." - James F. Berry, Center for Reflection on the Second Law